


Strong Invisible Thread

by ModernAgeSomniari



Series: Mala Suledin Nadas [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Gen, Leaving Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25247602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernAgeSomniari/pseuds/ModernAgeSomniari
Summary: Pre-CanonFor their whole lives, Ellana and her elder brother Brianne have been separated by three years of age and nothing else.  Until tomorrow morning.
Relationships: None
Series: Mala Suledin Nadas [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829143
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	Strong Invisible Thread

She put the bracelet under his pillow.

He wouldn’t accept it from her if she just gave it to him outright and she couldn’t blame him, not really.He’d never been particularly good at goodbyes.It wasn’t as if they had much practice at it other than going on hunts or expeditions.Never this far, never for this long.

She’d made the silk component bright green, from the thick nettles they’d passed a week before.She’d added some precious indigo to it to make it deep like their eyes.For the charms she’d attached a little doll she’d made from simple silk thread - an owl and a raven, wings outstretched, the one that joined them made from one strip of material sewn together like they shared it.She’d then snuck off to Getrith to get him to bore a hole in a worn piece of amber she’d found years ago and that Bri had always teased her for keeping.It had an insect in it, frozen in time.He’d thought it was disgusting, so she’d kept it.That she gave it to him now would worry him, make him fear she thought she wasn’t coming back.He’d be angry at her for a good few days about it.Which was good, because by then the immediate pain of her departure would have faded and, hopefully, by the time he calmed down it wouldn’t hurt as much.

She tweaked at his bed linen, feeling a little listless.He still hadn’t come back, which she’d expected, but felt a little disappointed nonetheless.Curling her legs underneath her, she sat in the opposite bunk in their aravel, casting her eyes around the chaos of objects littered over the shelves.They’d always collected things, like magpies.When she tried wondering what sorts of things she’d be picking up to take back to him on this journey a lump appeared in her throat, so she stopped wondering.Instead, she took up her time trying to imagine what this Divine might look like, with as much kindness in her words as power implicit in the quality of paper her reply had been written on.

When the door at the far end opened she had a sudden moment of fear that he’d pretend nothing was happening tomorrow morning, but his sheepish glance as he closed the door behind him told her the fear was ill-founded.

“Shouldn’t you be resting up for tomorrow, sis?”

“I couldn’t sleep alone.”

Her voice was as pointed as her look clearly was, the way he grimaced back.She found herself following the trace of his vallaslin, casting her eyes over his pale hair and tanned skin.Searching for his eyes, already missing the conspiratorial curve of his mouth that meant that they were on the same side.Always.

He gestured to her bed roughly.

“Well budge up then.”

She did so, pulling the blanket free of where she’d made it earlier as he blew the candles out.The bed was small with both of them in it now they were grown.They hadn’t done this in years.Their bodies remembered how though, Bri’s strong arm coming around her as she snuggled like a child into his chest.She let the laugh bubble from her stomach to her lips.

“I think we were a little smaller last time we did this.”

“You think?” he replied, but he was laughing, too.

They fell silent for a moment in the soft dark and Eli closed her eyes to listen to him breathe.It hadn’t really occurred to her that this is what leaving meant, which sounded silly even in her own head.The fact that the two of them had orchestrated it this way made it even more foolish, but she had no regrets about that.She was used to having dreams that made her heart race, but Bri was not; if there had ever been portent in her life, it had been that night as they slept under the ruined arch of a temple whose name was lost to time.She couldn’t even remember what had been in the dream, but both she and Bri had woken with a certainty that the both of them could not go on this journey to the Conclave.Even now, here, the thought of it brought fear to her gut.

“You won’t do anything stupid, will you?”

The question, which would normally be a tease, was made serious in the quiet plea of his voice.

“No, Brianne.I won’t.”

“I know you and your curiosity…

“My curiosity can get the better of me, yes.But my goal is to come home.To you.If my curiosity gets in the way of that goal, I’ll leave it behind.”

“And I am to believe that?”

Eli thought of the tiny silken owl and raven doll under the pillow in Bri’s unused bed.Thought of the wing that she had weaved them sharing.

“Yes, brother.Believe it.”

“Eli, I know how you…”

“I will not leave you alone, Bri.”

He fell silent.It was testament to his unease that he didn’t bristle, but they were alone in their caravan and they didn’t hold secrets from one another here.She felt his arm tighten, the fingers of his other hand rough-skinned as they squeezed her own.She squeezed back and felt him kiss her forehead sweetly enough her heart ached.

Then he laughed.

“And no seducing the shemlens, alright?You know they’re delicate about this sort of thing.”

The tension broke and she snorted back at him, glad both that the moment was over and that it had happened at all.

“You are the one who brings back tales of dwarven beards, brother.”

They bickered this way until they fell asleep.When they woke, laughing ruefully at how their bodies had cramped in the night after squeezing two full-sized elves into a tiny bunk, she realised she’d never be able to remember who had fallen asleep first.It brought a quiet smile to her face and she hung back as they left the aravel for just long enough to kiss the pads of her own fingers and press them gently to the pillow hiding the bracelet.

As the Clan rose to bid her, Ghila and Yerevan good bye, it was as if neither of them had any care in the world.Bri teased, she laughed, they shared a brief hug Bri broke too early and then she was turning away, like she had done so many times before.Only this time, she was going further than she’d ever dreamed she would, but always secretly wanted to.Somehow she’d always imagined he’d be with her.

As the three of them passed the little worn carving facing out into the woods from the camp, she heard Ghila mutter a quick prayer, Yerevan tapping the wolf on its head with the flat of his foot and spitting over its shoulder.She wasn’t sure which she wanted to do, letting the little figure fall behind in her indecision.What assistance would help her best?What should she fear most?Perhaps she simply wasn’t to know.

She cast a final glance back at its barely recognisable face.May the Trickster look somewhere else for a while, or else be at her side and watch for himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Brianne Lavellan was an option for my second Inquisitor before I decided on Daniel Trevelyan, but he keeps a special place in my heart and I wanted Ellana to be more grounded in reality this time, rather than just appearing at the beginning of the game with no prior connections to anyone.


End file.
